Buried Alive

Robert Kurtzman is a seasoned horror vet, no one can deny that. However he made a truly terrible film in this case. The new Dimension Extreme label has gotten off to a hot start with the excellent Black Sheep and Broken. In addition you have a good director and the always at the top of his game Tobin Bell in the cast. Who by the way the way does have a decent amount of screen time, as some have said it's just a cameo. Now if you look at my past reviews you can tell I'm a generous critic who makes an effort to highlight the strengths' of a film, but thats really a difficult task here. For one the film is quite boring. The cast is annoying with the exception of Tobin. They didn't make me laugh and they certainly didn't make me care about there fates'. Most of all Buried Alive goes a good thirty or forty minutes before anything scary or gory happens, and then you have another long wait to the end. Your just stuck with the lame interaction of the characters lounging about, really not doing much. Tobin Bell is the only bright spot here. Now a couple things barely save this from a one rating, and thats a few much welcome moments of nudity, and maybe two kills done much better in Wrong Turn 2. Still it's so awfully boring for so long that I was actually just looking at the back of the DVD case for the running time, to see how long my misery would last. As an easy to please critic I give Buried Alive a "very" generous 3 rating. Kurtzman's other new film The Rage actually looks quite good, so I'll forgive this effort.

Two college students Rene (Leah Rachel) and Zane (Terence Jay) invite their friends (Erin Lokitz, Lindsay Scott, Steve Sandvoss and Germaine De Leon) to their family ranch for the weekend somewhere in the desert. Which like any college students, they just want to have a wild party and getting laid. The Caketaker (Tobin Bell) is been trying to look for gold in the house. He accidentally digs the dead body of a old witch. Her spirit wants revenge and one by one, they are killed by this vengeful ghost.

Directed by Robert Kurtzman (The Demolitionlist, The Rage, Wishmaster) made an pretty dull, lifeless supernatural slasher horror film with some neat special effects and good production values can't save it. Most of the college students are pretty unlikeable in the movie expect for Scott as the cute blonde. Only Bell seems to be having any real fun with his supporting role, he is the only one to give some class in this movie. Kurtzman's previous features are more fun than this. Especially he's one of the best make-up artists around and he owns an independent film production titled "Precient 13". Which he is named after John Carpenter's cult classic "Assault on Precient 13". Too bad this premise is very uninteresting and even Horror fans will find boring. (* ½/*****).

A young man, his cousin, his cousin's boyfriend, a nerd and two sorority pledges go to the man's house in the desert, where everyone thinks they're just camping for the weekend. But the young man knows why they're really there: gold. There be gold in those hills! But does a family curse want them to be there, and what about the old caretaker, Lester (Tobin Bell)? Could be an interesting weekend.

Robert Kurtzman directs, which is a mixed blessing. Kurtzman has a good name in horror from his time at NKB doing makeup and special effects. And he directed "Wishmaster" which many consider to be something of a minor classic. The unfortunate thing about this film is that Kurtzman adds nothing special to his resume: while the directing overall seems much tighter than "Wishmaster", the story he was given to work with just isn't as enjoyable. Better film quality does not always mean a better film (in fact, it rarely means this).

The selling point to this film is probably Tobin Bell (Jigsaw from "Saw"). And I have to say his character is pretty decent, as the dirty caretaker of the desert homestead. Although, the role could have been given to just about anyone (it's a big cameo, but still a cameo). So unless you're a die-hard Bell fan, you shouldn't consider him the selling point. Maybe it's the nudity, as there is a good deal of nudity (plenty of female nudity, repeatedly, and a little bit of male bottom). The film has been called "oversexed" and I think that word fits this perfectly -- take the nude scenes out and the story is even more lame than it already is.

The killer wasn't all that great and the back story on her really made no sense to me. And the thing with the religious protection symbols... what? So in one scene the woman has a tattoo that scares off the demon or ghost or whatever, but in another scene it does nothing. And she covers her body in these symbols, all for no real reason.

Sure, there's a few good gory moments and people get chopped up... one kid even gets split not unlike the woman from "Wrong Turn 2" (which did it better). And again, plenty of nudity if you like women running through the woods or desert bare. Or in the tub. Or in the basement. But overall it was really boring and nothing particularly new... which I guess we should have figured out by the way they wrote the nerd character -- if there's ever been a more stereotypical nerd, I haven't seen him.

Wow. Before I watched this movie, I read the reviews here on IMDb. Since I tend to like cheesy "B" horror, I figured I would still give it a shot.

I really regret it! This movie is low-budget, which in and of itself is not bad - however, combined with the horrible acting, lousy special effects and the absence of any SOLID storyline, it simply does not work. The ending is beyond stupid, and it wraps up the movie as if it were a TV show that ran out of time. The characters are waaaay too cookie-cutter. You have the "nerd", the "dumb blonde", etc etc. Come on guys. Put a little more effort into developing the characters so that we, as the audience can get involved in this story and watch on the edge of our seats. Lousy, lousy, lousy.

I was VERY surprised that Tobin Bell signed on for this. I literally laughed out loud every time he appeared on camera. The cheap "jumps" were not scary whatsoever and failed to produce a "jump". Come on!

As far as the nudity, there was NOT that much. Typical teen horror. Some topless shots, but they were very quick or shot from far away. Close-ups of some female behinds (in panties), and a very long moaning scene with two people fulled dressed (he's rubbing her feet. Very PG-13). Friday the 13th's from the 1980's have better nudity...

The movie is BEYOND SLOW and feels like 180 minutes, rather than 90, because you just want it to end!!

Honestly, do not waste your time. If you are considering this movie, please pick something else. Otherwise, you'll be sitting here like me wondering why you wasted 90 minutes of your life. I would have rather cleaned my closet. Seriously.

Buried Alive was directed by a man who is pretty known in the genre, Robert Kurtzman and while his work as a special effects artist is pretty respectable, his work as a director is definitely expendable, at least in this movie. You have lots of pretty bad effects and actors that can't act, add to that that the plot is not really interesting and the pacing definitely has issues. Also for some reason two of the female characters are taking their clothes off in every chance they get for some reason and don't get me wrong I don't mind nudity in horror movies at all but it just felt so out of place and unnecessary that it really made me uncomfortable. One of the very few and things that is enjoyable in this movie is that it is starring Tobin Bell, but even he is more of a side character. While this movie is not completely terrible or complete trash it's definitely not recommendable in my opinion. [4,1/10]